Young Writers Society

When you wake up, you find yourself in a ballroom.

It's an old ballroom that has long ago fallen into decay. Its old purpose is still clear, but you can also tell that it's been a very long time since it last held a ball. When you look around the room, you discover that you're not the only person here. The other people all look as out-of-place as you feel right now—save for the fact that they're all wearing masquerade masks.

And then you realize that you're wearing one.

Naturally, you try to take it off. Everything else about you looks the same as it normally does. But when you try removing the masquerade mask, it refuses to come off. If you want to figure out where you are, how you got here, and why you're wearing that mask, it looks like you'll have to work with everyone else you just woke up with.

Elements of this Story Include…

• Magic. Characters have magical masquerade masks stuck to their faces.
• Fighting. Characters will be fighting currently undisclosed opponents.
• Planning. Harry and I are doing some super secret scheming in the background, so expect some planned plot points!
• Post-apocalyptic setting. There's a reason this setting is abandoned, and it's not a pretty one

1. Keep all out-of-character discussion over in the OOC thread! It keeps this thread nice and easy to navigate. As a bonus point, it makes rereading the roleplay a little bit smoother.

2. Please include a description of your character’s appearance in your first post and/or the OOC thread! We'll throw together a formal list of them in the post before this one, but we need to know what your character looks like so we can describe them in our posts. You can put the description in a spoiler with the code down below:

Code: Select all

[spoiler]Enspoilered text goes here![/spoiler]

3. Speaking of characters, feel free to pick characters from whatever you want. They can be from another roleplay, a storybook, a novel or even a fanfiction of yours. The only reasons we’ll say no to a character is because they’re either a) too powerful for this roleplay or b) somehow conflict with the plot I have planned. But I’ll definitely let you know if that’s the case! The only requirement is that your character has a masquerade mask on when they show up.

4. Please don’t write for anyone else’s characters. It's hard to predict what someone else might have their characters do, and it takes away some of the fun for the other writers.

5. Your character can guess what the plot is, but don’t make any plot-altering decisions without checking with me and/or Harry first! We'll be running this roleplay like a DM runs a Dungeons & Dragon campaign. There’s some things that absolutely have to happen in a certain way to progress the plot, but the other writers have a lot of flexibility with other parts of the story.

(For example, you might not be able to add an NPC, but you can choose how your character interacts with them—save for if that interaction somehow conflicts with the plot!)

We’ll do my best to communicate how flexible a certain part of the story is, but always check with us if you’re not sure.

6. Don't post multiple times in a row. Make sure everyone has a chance to get a response in. There's going to be times where it makes more sense to post back-and-forth between two people, but please be courteous of your fellow roleplayers! If you want a faster-paced roleplay, Roleplay Hollow roleplays might be more of your cup of tea.

7. Posts should be on the longer side and be easy to read. Since this is a Roleplay Realm roleplay, longer posts are the norm. Occasionally, a sentence reply might work best, but the goal is to have longer posts. As for the easy to read bit: don’t worry! Just follow grammar rules and you should be all set.

8. Communicate with your fellow roleplayers. Ever have to take a break from the roleplay or realize it’s not really working out for whatever reason? That’s okay! Just let us know ahead of time so we can naturally write your character out of the story or give you the time you need to write your post. The key to a really fun and finished roleplay is communicating with the other writers.

I should have realized that trying to fake sleep paralysis was a bad idea.

It had seemed like a great idea in theory. I'd sneak into Natty boy's room, possess him, and then have Asmira dim the lights and change the temperature so it felt like there was a ghost in his room.

(I could have technically done the light and temperature work myself, but I couldn't risk getting kicked out of Nathaniel's body mid-prank.)

Theoretically, nothing should have gone wrong. My plan was perfect. There was just the slight problem of me almost always getting into some kind of world-hopping trouble when I tried that scheme. The first time I had tried it, I ended up possessing a mannequin in another world and had to track down my body. The other times hadn't been much better.

My last memory was being almost at Nathaniel's bedside. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in some old, abandoned ballroom. When I looked around, I saw I wasn't the only one waking up. There were other people here, too. Weirdly enough, they were all wearing masks. It had a vaguely cultish feeling to it, given how normal the rest of their clothes were, but they didn't feel like a cult in the way Bickerstaff's had.

...Wait a minute. Was there something on my face?

I reached a hand up and felt metal underneath my fingertips. Someone had put a mask there. Not too concerned, I tried to pull it off. I could handle a slight change in costume.

But the mask refused to budge. And the more I felt around its edges in an attempt to tear it off, the more I realized I couldn't feel anything keeping it in place. There weren't any strings or hooks or whatever people used to keep masks like this on. It was just there in all of its metallic glory.

I groaned.

This was going to be a long day, wasn't it?

Vankous let out a massive yawn and stretched, reaching out to order his state of the art coffee maker to do its job. His hands touched a cold, damp floor that reminded him strongly of some sort of tile. Suddenly he realized that feeling was spreading all over him. He was lying on some sort of floor.

"AHHHHHH" he screamed, a blast of purple straightening him immediately as he landed on what he hoped was a superhero appropriate pose and looked around. This was absolutely not where he had fallen asleep. He was a 100% sure he'd fallen asleep in one of the guest bedrooms down in the underworld. Okay he was 90% sure. Clearly this was not the guest bedroom unless Jason had decided that he wanted to change the theme to ancient abandoned ballroom. The Lord of the Dead had terrible taste in most things, but even he wouldn't pick this for a bedroom, especially when there was no bed.

He harrumphed, checking his watch to learn more. He sighed. He was definitely not in the underworld. An accidental hop through a dimension, yet again. Looking to his left, he could see a few others, all wearing assorted masks. He took a step back.

Had he been kidnapped by some interdimensional ballroom cult. Maybe they were related to that possessed masquerade mask attack they'd fought that one other time in a similar abandoned ballroom. He was just about to ask precisely that when he realized there was something on his face. Doing his best not to scream this time, he had to make a proper impression on these cultists after all, he felt the mask. It seemed normal enough. Then he tried to pull it off. It didn't budge. He muttered a spell under his breath. Nada. Well...these guys were good. Either that or Harry was upto one of his pranks.

He twirled rapidly, appropriately loud "BOO" ready to be released in Harry's smirking face when he saw something or rather someone that stopped him in his tracks. A very familiar pale white dress and what looked to be the ever so slightly transparent body of a young girl, also covered in a white mask. He would recognize that temporal signature anywhere now, the past three years had seen to that.

"Susan, is that you?" he whispered.

The girl turned. "Vankous?"

"Regrettably, yes. Do you have any idea what we're doing here? Did Harry spirit everyone off to a reenactment of some ancient ballroom based cult?" asked Vankous.

Susan sounded understandably confused in her reply.

"Not that I know of..." she said tentatively, "I think we got spirited off somewhere. This feels weirdly like its not home."

"No it isn't" said Vankous, sighing. "Let's see if anyone else here knows anything. Don't worry. I'm sure we'll get back safely. Just keep your wits about you."

"I will," said Susan, "maybe we should start by asking the one in the scary skull mask."

"Yes, he does appear to have terribly overdone the 'I wear black so I'm cool idea'. He seems the sort who would know this kind of place," said Vankous.

"I umm...." began Susan, before she clearly decided against it.

"What was that?" asked Vankous.

"Nothing," said Susan, before muttering under her breath. "You're the one with three calculators hanging out of your pockets."

Flat...and solid.

Those are the words he would use to describe the surface upon which he laid. Other descriptions came to mind; cold, hard...but they seemed pointless as the cold was but a temperature difference and the smooth but awkwardly firm floor caused no pain to his joints as it might another person.

He had come awake from some deep slumber in an instant, consciousness returning as a flash, a transitory respite of rest ending so quickly there was no recollection or memory of the past. No dreams to return to for any semblance of what had been before. He just knew that he was aware, aware of his surroundings in succinct detail.

Something within him defaulted to a cautious and observant mode, refraining from movement or sound, even the effort to breathe produced no rising or falling of the chest. His hands did not twitch. His eyelids did not flutter.

The area in which he lay felt large, but confined. Most certainly a closed room, slight drafts sifting beneath several thresholds that remained closed. Similar alterations in the air current were sensed along the wall to his right, indicating a series of tall windows, shutter less, and lacking in natural light. Night time, it seemed, was the exterior atmosphere, but inside those wood laced, stone walls a set of oil lamps illuminated the interior in a warming sort of glow. Odd, it seemed, as the antiquated decor and Edwardian century furnishings lent an...old air to the scene. Yet the scents percolating into his nostrils denoted a much more advanced structure.

Even the electric buzz hidden behind the wood panels was evidence of the post industrial age technology.

So why the obvious attempt at deceiving the guests? At least, he assumed they were guests. None were restrained, or distressed in anyway, beyond what could only be the occasional nightmare as they slept. He had been the first to wake.

But suddenly, another strange realization fell upon him as he recognized an added weight resting on his face. It was not overly heavy, and it did not cover the full features of his brawny profile. Metallic in material, it had to be, stealing the warmth from his skin and the cool from the air. Small sections were missing between the intertwining lines creating a latticed pattern. There were also tiny spears of light reflecting out of small crystalline bits that adorned the outer curves. Diamonds, or machined glass, most likely.

It covered only the right side of his face, a small portion arching over the left of his forehead and just touching the temple on that side. But not his left eye or cheek, which remained fully exposed.

A mask.

He wore a mask. And judging by the fact that there were no strings tied around his head, nor any sort of clasps or cinches, it could only mean that it was held in place by some power other than friction or tension.

Magnetism? But no pressure was felt between the metal and his own flesh. Rather...it rested there, without effort, fused to his features by some unseen force.

There were still a few people sleeping throughout the room, but I was more interested in the ones that had woken up. Besides me, three people had woken up so far—an older guy with a face that didn't look quite right, a guy with a lab coat, and a girl wearing a white dress. Her dress was the only outfit that really seemed to fit this place.

She also was transparent.

She was talking with the lab coat guy. I couldn't help but feel uneasy at that realization. She seemed like a ghost, but ghosts were rarely that sentient. I knew they were looking at me. That wasn't a problem.

I'd bug the other awake guy after I figured out what was up with those two. There had only ever been two Type Threes before, and I wasn't eager to accept that a third had been made—likely with the help of whoever the lab coat guy worked for.

I walked over to the two of them.

"Hey," I said with a smirk that didn't reach my eyes. The air's temperature dropped for a moment, but I fought to return it to normal. I wasn't going to let my powers act up because I was uneasy, and especially wasn't going to let them kick me out of my body right now.

The first thing Violet noticed before she opened her eyes was the damp, musty floor underneath her.

Good grief. She had only been in Unova for a couple of weeks. There was no way the Viridian Gym had fallen into this state of disrepair. Violet opened her eyes, meeting the ceiling.

This was not the gym. This didn't even look like any building in the city. For one thing, Viridian City's ballroom was kept in very good care, and there weren't unfamiliar people either standing around or lying unconscious on the floor.

Violet stood up and brushed off the dust and dampness on her yellow dress and immediately felt for her Pokeballs. But, her belt wasn't snug around her waist. Violet patted herself frantically, but she couldn't feel any of her partners' comforting capsules. A quick glance around told her that no one else had their Pokemon too.

Her first thought was that Team Rocket had done this, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that this didn't look like anything they would do. They were still weak after the failed operation in Unova.

She wrung her hands together, feeling bare without her gloves, which she had dumbly left in the office.

Calm down, she thought. You're the Champion, for Arceus's sake! Violet thought for Mew, hoping the mythical creature's aura was still nestled in the back of her mind, but there wasn't any trace.

Violet sighed and relaxed her posture. This was...not fine, but she could handle this. She handled everything life threw at her. Even the ghost girl that was talking to the two men. Violet decided to do the same. Better to introduce themselves and figure out what happened together. Then she realized something.

All of them, including the still unconscious ones, were wearing masks. And so was she.

Violet hadn't even realized the weight over her face before, but now that was all she felt. It was metal, and it only fit over her eyes. There were small designs poking out over the edges. And there were no strings attached to it. Violet tried to hook her fingernails over the edges, but it stuck fast, as though it were fused to her face. She shivered, but took a deep breath, and walked over to her new companions.

"Hi. I like your masks," she said, waving a hand. "Where are we?"

My character:



The mask:



When Sophie woke up, she was still too tired to realise that she had not managed to get into bed last night. She was too engrossed in finishing the film in the living room and didn't notice that it was well past three in the morning when she was already lying there on the sofa snoring while the credits of the film were playing.

With some initial difficulty, she turned over and slammed into a wall. As Sophie thought, the sofa, but it was not blue and soft, instead it was brown and dusty.

Horrified, she realised she was not in her living room, but before she panicked, she thought to herself that she must be dreaming.

"Another one of those strange dreams I have?"

She muttered to herself and looked around. It was an old run-down ballroom she was looking at. Scattered about were other people, but Sophie paid them no attention. Rather, she seemed sad that the ballroom had long since fallen into disuse.

"If I'm going to dream, I'd like to see an enlightened hall with chandeliers and lots of dancing couples..."

Yawning, she sat down against the wall and noticed that her shoes were next to it.

"Weird."

Sophie shook her head and thought to herself. She pinched herself and wanted to wake up, there was still this appointment she had during the day. It didn't work the first time. The second time she closed her eyes and pinched herself again. The landscape before her eyes did not change. She tried a third time, a fourth time... The skin on her arm was already turning blue and Sophie was beginning to notice the pain she was in.

"Where am I?"

Only now did she realise that the other people in the ballroom were wearing strange masks and probably wondering the same thing she was wondering. Sophie reached into her face and felt not her skin but a mask as well.

"Get this off me!"

Sophie pulled at the mask and became more frantic, almost as if she thought a giant spider was attached to her.

Her flaring temper caused her to trip over her shoes.

" Shoot! Why won't it come off!?"

Sophie was unsure where she was, but one thing was clear; she was not dreaming. She was somewhere completely different from where she had fallen asleep last night. She tried again to get the mask off with a gentle nudge, but when she saw that the other people in the room also stopped taking off their masks, she gave up.

Desperate to know what had happened, she looked around and noticed a small group gathering. Not wanting to be the last, Sophie grabbed her shoes and stumbled over to them.

"Hey! Wait for me!"

Vankous POV

"This one is super suspicious," thought Vankous in the direction of Susan, hoping the girl could recognize it and remembered how to reply.

I totally forgot you could do this too," came Susan's thoughts in reply. They were faint. Clearly she hadn't been practicing or she was too used to the intensity needed to reach Jennifer and Harry to bother thinking any louder. It was enough for Vankous to make out though. It would have to do for now.

So, I can't believe I'm saying this, but back on topic. I just wanted to tell you not to give your actual name to anyone. Protocol and all that.

Really? I thought you hate protocol

I am always down for ignoring protocol, but that's when I know where I am and I'm in control of what's happening. This is not that...and neither Harry nor Jennifer are free enough to bail us out either. I will deny ever having said this and if you tell anyone i will find a way to turn a spirit into a rabbit, but we have to be...resp..res...you know the world I'm referring to.

Susan looked like she was trying her hardest not to burst out laughing. Vankous chose to ignore that and looked towards the two who had greeted them.

"Greetings mortals," said Vankous, choosing to go slightly dramatic with this one. It wasn't often he was in the company of people he could flex that with. It was no good being tens of thousands of years old when the people you worked with had been alive for millions of them.

He turned sharpy to the one who had approached them first. He looked a little...troubled. Vankous couldn't fully place it, but he decided this was someone to be careful of, especially considering the place around them. He was no good at sensing death, but he could sense the passage of time, and this place was not one with a good history or a particularly good future.

"Hii...you look...conflicted," said Vankous, smiling slightly at the man.

Susan POV

Susan turned to face the other girl that had addressed them. Vankous had clearly taken some sort of interest in the other one and she had no interest in jumping between that. At any rate, this wasn't the first time she'd been dumped in a random place due to some interdimensional glitch and it always helped to talk to everyone around her, or so Jennifer had advised that one time. She probably hadn't been paying as much attention as she should have, but she was pretty sure.

She debated between allowing herself to become solid or remaining in her currently half and half state. Considering she had no idea if she was going to be attacked, this was probably wiser. At least she could now control it somewhat. It had been a genuine nightmare back when she had barely any control over her own tangibility.

Susan took a good look at the girl that had just complimented them on all their masks and had to fight down a slight blush. This was ridiculous. Why did Vankous get to talk to the scary one and she get the...ahhh, maybe she should've jumped into the middle of that conversation after all. It would've been loss painful.

"Umm...th..thank you," she managed, just knowing she would've made a total fool of herself already. "Although I didn't pick this mask. Whoever or whatever kidnapped us has good taste." She didn't know why she added that completely unnecessary last part but she went along with it.

"That's a coo..cool mask too," she managed, with a smile. Danvers, please tell me you're not doing what I think you are

Deciding she was not going to respond to Vankous and acknowledge that with an answer she tried to focus her thoughts on the other question the girl had asked. Something about where they were.

"Nowhere, not like Knowhere, the place, but umm, what I'm trying to say is I don't know. Do you? Or wait, you asked me where we were, of course you don't know, not that I think you're stupid..but..." Susan just decided to stop speaking at that point. Her rambling was getting entirely too out of control. She had fought an army of possessed breakfast pastries for goodness sake. She could talk to a pretty girl.

"Sorry, I ramble sometimes," she managed after a second. She tried to think of something else to say when another woman ran upto them, tripping over things and yelling about not getting left behind.

Susan managed to eke out a hi but mentally she knew that she was thoroughly doomed. She really, really should've talked to the one in the scary mask and let Vankous handle this.

This was supposed to be a small interrogation, but it looked like everyone else in the room had a completely different set of ideas. Add in the lab coat guy calling me a mortal, and my day was quickly going from bad to worse.

"I'm not conflicted," I said. "I'm just...curious about why you and your friend were watching me earlier. I'd also like to know what you're doing with a sentient ghost."

There was a chance he was from a world where ghosts were very different than they were back in my original world. Nathaniel and Asmira, of course, came from a world that had never had a Problem, and the dead guys in Nikko's world usually turned out to be living with another alias. But considering how my last encounter with another Type Three had gone, I wasn't all that eager to underestimate what I was up against.

The one with the translucent girl was particularly odd to him.

Austin had been watching them for awhile, as some awoke and others took a much longer time arousing from their induced slumber. Each wore a mask, similar to his but entirely different in pattern and texture. Each seemed to be fused to their facial features with the same inexistent force.

Vankous was his name, and Susan hers. The communicated via some telepathic connection, whether mechanical or not was beyond him to tell, there was no radio signal, only the slight movements of the body and lips that happens even with those proficient in silent forms of communication. He'd only seen skilled ventriloquists able to pull it off seamlessly. Those two seemed to think they were the only important ones in the room.

Two others had awoken also. One moved like a frightened animal, instinctually, clambering to his hands and feet as if ready for a fight. Nothing threatening here, though. Despite each of the members of this oddly organized party housing some inward secret that emanated with a ring of power, the kind that comes with comic-book stories...not a single one of them had any clue why, or where they were.

And what use is power when it's entirely mislead and stifled by uncertainty?

There was much more he had gathered about this place in the fifteen or so minutes he had stood there, but the longer Austin stood, and even as this small group began to mingle, sharing their own version of an introduction or greeting, and closing the circle around him despite having never said a word nor made eye contact...his attention remained on the one remaining body that lay on the floor.

Not dead, very much alive, and very much bustling with activity beneath that quiet shell. The others seemed flippant with their thoughts, tossing them about without care of who was listening.

She, on the other hand...was silent as the grave. And that silence was deafening to him.

The room was considerably darker since Kathrine had fallen asleep, an oddity gave how bright the moon illuminated the outdoors. When her eyes caught movement across the window-pane, a bony hand dragged across the glass, she resentfully stood to look.
Despite her usual chills, her skin didn't mind the cool air, and so she made her way to the window without a second thought. As she looked, a dark figure just barely dodged around the corner; louder than it should be, footsteps creaked from the porch.
Time cut from one window to the next: from turning away from the bedroom, she seemed instantly at the front of the house. Across the road, someone watched her from under the aging tree; though the moonlight the billowing of a cloak, once they stepped into the light the figure disappeared.
She had at first missed the seeming emptiness of the living room, but when she turned to return to be, it all became more evident.
"Oh god no"
"mum"

My eyes snap open, I soon to realized that I am now covered in a cold sweat, I am now shaking My heart is pounding, looking around the room suspicious and paranoid that horror may have followed me here. But soon realized I'm no longer in my small apartment. It's an old ballroom that has long ago fallen into decay. Its old purpose is still clear, but I can also tell that it's been a very long time since it last held a ball. Getting up cautiously, shivering. I go to touch my face...

A Mask?


"Ugh Why won't it come off"

Dusting my pants and shirt off.




Not realizing I'm not alone.





This is Her Mask

"Interesting choice of words," said Vankous, slowly, maybe a bit slower than was strictly necessary. "As for your question, well you looked to have the worst sense of fashion. And you seemed to have awoken first. Well, maybe. Time is a curious thing. And I have no idea what you're trying to imply about my friend over here. I don't believe you have any sort of right to ask a question like that. You talk as if she's some sort of monster. I don't appreciate that tone Mr.?"

As Sophie got closer to the group, she realised how eccentric they seemed. It wasn't even the masks, but the general look of everyone.

Sophie didn't want to make any prejudices and certainly didn't want to cause any trouble, because a voice in her head told her that she wouldn't get out of here alone.

"Hi."

She greeted the group in a whisper, overhearing what was being discussed. Rather, she was particularly impressed by two figures. One of them seemed younger than her and strange. That was Sophie's only word in her head. She could not take her eyes off her and continued to stare at them while trying to put her shoes on backwards.

But there was also something... mysterious about it. Sophie wasn't sure how else to explain it. While her gaze didn't leave the two figures, who were somehow not from this world. But still, she tried to remember if she had met any of them before. It was hard, though, with the masks covering their faces.

Sophie had to get herself back and solve one problem at a time. She sat down in the middle of the floor to put on her shoes. Down, her ears were numb, too focused on tying the laces, she hoped fervently that no one would be watching her finish knotting her fingers.

Instead, she put on a smile, stood on both feet and looked over at a sombre-looking guy. Her smile disappeared briefly and came back as she quickly got a suitable sentence ready.

"Yeah, well, you're all wearing masks too. Do you know what's going on here?"

She had spoken loudly, but not too loudly. She tried to come across as cool and calm while the gears in the back of her head were rattling about whether she should try tying her shoes again. At the same time, she wasn't sure if she was being noticed, so she added her name in a voice that was probably a little too loud.

"I'm Sophie!"

Everyone was up now, but I was too preoccupied with the man in front of me to really notice. I knew my fashion sense was questionable according to some. I hadn't even seen what my mask looked like yet, but, from when I had run my hand over it earlier, it had felt like it fit everything else.

"Skull," I said, giving a smirk that didn't reach my eyes. "I never implied she was a monster. Ghosts like her aren't supposed to exist. And don't underestimate who you're talking to, kid. I have more of a right to talk about ghosts than you do. Now, I'll say it again: I want to know why there's a sentient ghost in front of me right now."

If this guy hadn't been getting on my nerves so much, I might have thought that his irritation at his friend being considered a monster was a good thing. It meant he had morals, and didn't just see ghosts as tools.

But he was really getting on my nerves, so the thought didn't even occur.